


Where You Carry Your Tension

by aintnoonefancy



Series: Mercury is a Poison [2]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: And angsty, Implied Unhealthy Relationships, M/M, Minor Body Horror, back massages, but gay, i swear i tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintnoonefancy/pseuds/aintnoonefancy
Summary: There is a certain degree of intimacy involved in offering a back massage. A side step exploration of two massages between Joey and Bertrum and a comparison of how their relationship has evolved and changed over time.
Relationships: Joey Drew/Henry Stein/Bertrum Piedmont
Series: Mercury is a Poison [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785643
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	Where You Carry Your Tension

“What did you expect with so little at hand?” Bertrum went to gesture to his travesty of a workspace only to stop short as pain travelled up his spine, along his shoulders, and right up to the base of his skull. Gritting his jaw, he forced himself to relax as best as he could when every muscle along his spine spasmed with the slightest movement. 

“I expected a miracle, apparently.” Joey crossed his arms. Damn the man and his ability to be smug and insensitive at all times. Was he capable of kindness and consideration or had he carved both out to make room for more sarcasm? 

Indignantly, he reared back, only to hiss as agony raged up his back. Struggling to reach around and press a hand to the protesting, twitching muscles, he bent at the waist — barely, his hips too tight to allow more motion — and breathed shallowly around the heavy pain. Of all the times. The rain had settled in his back and the long hours certainly weren’t helping, but this was almost beyond his ability to ignore. He forced a sneer as he met the other man’s gaze only to be met with a thoughtful frown. 

“Oh please, spare me your mocking stares,” he snapped. “Let’s move on. I have over-delivered considering the limitations—”

With more speed than he’d seen from the man before, Joey moved behind Bertrum. “Remain still, you old fool.”

“What are you—” His sharp protests immediately melted to a soft, if confused, sigh, as Joey’s thumbs immediately found and loosened a particularly hard knot in his shoulders. “Oh, I...”

“If I could, I’d have your face into a pillow, so indulge me and hush up.” Hardly the kindest words, or tone, but the man’s hands were gentle. His fingers were cool as they sought out points of tension in his shoulders and neck. Aches he hadn’t been aware of made themselves known, then dissipated into waves of relief. Even the contact itself was pleasant. Even through his layers, tingling warmth seeped down to his bones, smoldering trails where Joey’s long fingers dragged. He had missed this, the physical contact, and had feared it gone away after their last fight.

He let out another soft sigh, rolling his head forward and relishing in the fact it no longer hurt to do so.

“That’s it,” Joey whispered, breath ghosting across the exposed flesh of his neck. A shiver ran down his spine and pooled somewhere below his stomach as the man used the point of his elbow to massage the muscle at his shoulder. “There we go.”

Eyes drifting closed, he rested his weight on the chair, gripping the back of it as pleasure overwhelmed him. Distantly, he heard his joints popping like a firecracker and sighed in relief. 

“Just relax and enjoy it, Bertie.”

How could he not relax when apparently Joey had missed his calling as a masseuse? He tried to say something to that effect, but his vocal cords felt like rubber and he only managed an inarticulate groan from deep within his chest. 

Still, Joey seemed to understand him. He snorted, holding back laughter. The warmth of his breath prickled his skin with goose flesh. 

“I didn’t realize,” he said, so soft Bertrum almost didn’t hear him. Didn’t realize what? 

Didn't realize that his muscles were so loose his arms now felt like well oiled machinery? That he could barely keep upright because his knees had turned to warm water? That he hadn’t ever felt pleasure like this?

Or that Joey just found and released the mother of all knots between his shoulder blades?

He let loose a mewl of contentment that, were he more cognizant, would have embarrassed him. Instead, he leaned against the chair, holding himself upright with that instead. 

When Joey manhandled him to sit straddling the chair instead, he didn’t even protest it. His hands had warmed as he worked and they had his skin aflame. 

“Your posturing is counter to my efforts. You’re going to undo my work doing that,” he explained, even though Bertrum couldn’t have protested even if he wanted too. 

The angle allowed Joey to move lower, kneading the tight muscles at his waist and lower back. Unashamed, Bertrum let his head droop to rest on the chair back and let another moan slip loose. 

Much too soon by his count, but then he would have been happy to have Joey rub his back for the rest of his life, it stopped. His skin still tingled and burned with the memory of the other man’s hands on him, long fingers pressing into muscle, caressing and plying tendon and bone to obey. The tangled muscle that had previously wound through and around his bones like thick cords of steel felt warm and lax. 

“Thank you,” he breathed, finally able to speak like a human being again. 

Joey pat his shoulder as he moved from behind him. “Now who’s being an emotional sap?” he joked, tone as warm as Bertrum’s face. 

He didn’t have the energy to try speaking again, blinking slowly and fighting to remain conscious. Between one blink and the next, a dewy glass of water appeared in his hands. Until he started drinking, he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was, the cool water soothing his rough, dry throat with its clean taste. 

“Rest for a while,” Joey ordered, hand painfully close to his on the chair, yet not touching. “I’m sorry.”

While the other man made no effort to bridge the gap, Bertrum himself had no qualms about layering his hand over his. “Thank you.”

Joey glanced away and mumbled what might have been another apology, squeezing Bertrum’s hand tightly.

“I’m sorry as well,” Bertrum said, staring at their hands. “I never intended to hurt you, and then I crossed a line that no man ever should.”

“Don’t,” Joey choked, “apologize. _Please_. It happened, Bertrum. It’s fine.”

He wanted to protest. To explain himself, beg forgiveness, but even now he knew that was a selfish desire. Forgiveness was meant for the victim, not the aggressor, and he tried not to feel bitter over his apology being ignored yet again. 

A few minutes passed in silence between them before Joey, albeit with obvious reluctance, pulled away from Bertrum. “I must return to work,” he mumbled. “The world moves on, darling.”

Pursing his lips, he sighed and nodded. 

“Rest a little longer,” Joey ordered, offering a too wide, too warm smile, like a spreading bruise. “You’ve earned it.”

He hummed instead of a proper response.

* * *

Bertrum stood in the doorway for a solid minute as he debated whether to knock first or simply walk into the office, or even walk away. He had already gone through the ritual and would be fine for a while once more. He could leave. Yet, he did not. 

Watching Joey openly as the man leaned against the wall and awaited Henry’s return with yet another mug of coffee, Bertrum saw the man’s shallow, carefully even breaths and stiff posture, the way he hesitated before moving or twisting his torso. At first he was content to let the man suffer in silence, since he already readily complained so bitterly about being cold, ignored, or anything else that he felt was disagreeable, but then he saw Joey’s hands shake and his eyes slide shut, a pinched expression on his face; obviously he thought no one was watching, and thus the guard finally fell. The motions were careful, practiced, possibly even muscle memory. Bertrum felt a spike of nausea, wondering whether those mysterious bruises he so often saw blooming on Joey were reappearing. (Or rather, if the cause of them had resurfaced.)

Bertrum thought of his own back and (too many) arms, how the muscles protested the addition of metal displacing (replacing) bone and tendon. How the dank chill that permeated the studio seemed to settle in his every joint and gather especially around the metal. He thought of how utterly wrecked Joey had looked once they had tallied up the dead, tears ringing his eyes in red and roughing up his voice. Damn the man for tugging his heart strings even when he wanted to indulge his righteous rage.

His mind made up, he strode into the room and made his way over to Joey, prying him off of the wall. “Hold still, you old fool,” he sighed as he guided him to sit down in his chair, straddling it. 

As if emerging from a fog, Joey blinked blearily at him. “What—”

“Quiet now,” he ordered, absently, as he situated himself behind the man and examined his back. Staring at his shoulders, visibly tense and drawn tight under the loose fabric, he wondered where to start. Did it really matter? He was already far out of his depth.

He found a space to settle his hands on either shoulder and rested his thumbs over the hardness he felt there. Was that bone, or knotted muscle? He didn’t know enough about anatomy or massages to be able to tell. 

For the first time since he decided he would do this, he felt apprehensive. He bit his lower lip before digging his thumbs into his back. 

Joey gasped sharply. 

Bertrum jerked back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he insisted, sounding strangled despite the reassurance. “What are you doing?”

“Giving a massage.” He returned his hands to their position on the man’s shoulders, feeling no small degree of pride at the fact Joey leaned into his touch. “Is it not obvious?”

“Not with a shard of metal digging into my shoulder blades, no.” 

But when he tried to take his hand off, Joey’s hand shot over his shoulder to pin it in place. 

“Wait. I didn’t intend— it’s not unappreciated. Thank you.”

Instead of dignifying that with a response and potentially opening the door to Joey’s usual brand of saccharine irreverence, or any of the other countless inky cans of worms lying around, he reapplied pressure. 

It was — unnerving. The man’s bones felt birdlike and pressed against his hands awkwardly, and he was bitterly cold to touch (privately, he amended his previous assumption the man was simply being difficult when he complained of the chill). But there was something oddly gratifying about feeling him come loose under his hands, first slowly then all at once. With a low rumbling groan, the man gave up all pretense to maintaining any sense of decorum and leaned into Bertrum, rolling his head back to rest it in the crook of his neck. 

“Is this acceptable to you?” he asked, and wasn’t that just like Joey, to act first then ask for permission after. Or perhaps, Bertrum considered, he wasn’t talking about their positioning at all. 

Nonetheless, Bertrum couldn’t say he minded it. In a smooth motion, he wrapped his arms around Joey’s frail shoulders, holding him to his chest. It couldn’t have been comfortable, what with the metal plates there, but Joey didn’t seem to mind, even burrowing closer. After a few more minutes, their breathing steadily falling into synchrony, Bertrum found he didn’t mind either. When Joey’s slight weight began to slip, his posture melting with sleep, Bertrum simply readjusted his hold and sat them both down, bringing him into his lap as he did so. 

It was likely a mistake, even he could recognize that, but he was a desperate, foolish man, and he so wanted back what they had shared. He pressed a kiss to Joey’s temple and tried not to feel every ounce of conflicted fury and concern and lingering affection tear him up inside. If he closed his eyes, if he didn’t focus on the fact he had four arms wrapped about Joey, or on the fact that he smelled of coffee and ink and something faintly electric, he could pretend easily enough. He hummed and held tighter onto Joey and the illusion, too.

The door banged against the wall as Henry came back in, startling Joey out of his arms and onto the floor. 

“Oh, hell,” Henry cursed, both hands carrying a meal and the earlier promised coffee. “Sorry, I thought I had a better grip on the door.”

Wheezing, Joey cupped his side and scrambled to get back to his feet. Gently, Bertrum held the man by his arms, mindful of where he held him, and carefully eased them both to a standing position. Joey bared his teeth in what might have charitably been called a smile.

Henry hastily set down the plate and the coffee and moved to grab Joey from Bertrum, not quite harshly enough to comment on, and folded the man against his front.

“You alright, baby?” Henry asked, tilting Joey’s chin to meet his gaze. “Your ribs are still bugging you, huh? After you finish up, we’ll take a rest, how’s that sound?”

With his eyes slipping shut, Joey simply nodded. Henry pressed a kiss to his lips, one hand slipping down his side to rest on his thigh.

“Good boy,” he cooed once he broke the kiss, like Joey were some spooked animal. “You’re doing so well.”

Something was very, very wrong here, and while Bertrum was finally starting to catch on, he couldn’t quite place what had him so unnerved. 

When Joey glanced over to him, his eyes were flat and half lidded. A rasp to his voice, he asked, “Did you require anything further I could provide for you, Mr. Piedmont?”

Plenty. A surfeit of chances and lost opportunities presented themselves now. Bertrum could demand Joey admit every failure and step he took in dragging them all into this inky hell. He could demand Joey never took another cent of his money in repayment (much as he understood the need). An apology. Forgiveness. An explanation. He could demand nearly anything of him, and he was certain he would actually give it, provided he could. 

“Nothing more,” he answered, feeling strangely hollow and lost, watching his ex partners. “Not from you.” 

Henry grinned, shark-like. “See you later, _Bertie_.”

Soundly dismissed, and feeling equal parts betrayed and traitorous, Bertrum left them alone. 


End file.
